# Christopher Groskopf
Creative and Intentional Technical Leadership

Chris is a strategic leader with 15+ years of experience creating products that engage and empower users. He has scaled teams of 40+ across product, design, and engineering. He strives to bring calm, compassion, and good judgment to every decision.

Outside work, Chris is a parent, omnivorous reader, small-dollar art collector, amateur historian, family genealogist, mediocre ukulele player, and occasional plastic rock climber. He is applying AI and data-driven methods to art history research.

## Profiles

- **GitHub**: https://github.com/onyxfish
- **LinkedIn**: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-groskopf/
- **Instagram**: https://www.instagram.com/_onyxfish/
- **X / Twitter**: https://twitter.com/onyxfish

## Curriculum Vitae

**Technical Manager, Discovery & Delivery** — California Digital Library (University of California) (2026––pres.)

Ensuring faculty and students have seamless access to the collections of UC and world libraries

- Overseeing development of Zephir, the HathiTrust metadata management platform, and AGUA, our platform for shared collections analysis
- Implementing modern DevOps and SRE best practices to improve reliability and consistency across our project portfolio
- Establishing expectations, norms, and guardrails for agentic development

**Branch Chief, Dissemination Technology and Services** — Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (2023––2026)

Created data-driven products that empowered the American people to make informed public health decisions

- Led the branch through its "startup phase," growing to 40+ staff spanning data engineering, data visualization, and product management
- Led office-wide strategy for data visualization, dashboard development, and data sharing from within the agency’s enterprise data platform
- Oversaw frontier projects, including a first-of-its-kind integrated dashboard for infectious diseases and the application of generative AI in public health communications
- Built a generous, trusting, and rewarding work environment that had only one voluntary departure during a period of intense turmoil

**Deputy Managing Editor, Interactives and Graphics** — FiveThirtyEight (Disney) (2019––2023)

Published daily visual and interactive journalism, including FiveThirtyEight's signature election forecasts

- Co-led 35+ staff across all functions, including strategy and operations, while maintaining direct ownership over design and engineering
- Led design and development of interactive data products obsessed over by millions, including real-time sports predictions, COVID infection models, and election forecasts
- Managed product partnerships within Disney and with distribution partners including Apple News

**Data Engineering Lead and Program Manager** — Enigma Technologies (2017––2019)

Built the first version of Enigma's ontology-powered API for small business verification, fraud detection, and KYC

- Led the development and operations of a scalable, AWS-based ETL platform for ingesting public and private data sources using Airflow, Docker, and Python
- Oversaw experimentation and integration of heuristic and AI/ML approaches to entity resolution

**Data Editor** — Quartz (2015––2017)

Coordinated fast-moving, data-driven projects with partners across the newsroom

**Lead Visuals Developer** — NPR (2012––2015)

Delivered real-time election results and other high-profile news products

**Lead Developer** — PANDA Project (2011––2012)

Developed a complete data warehousing solution to help newsrooms find stories in public and private data

**News Applications Developer** — Chicago Tribune (2009––2011)

Published industry-leading, award-winning data journalism

**Systems Analyst** — Cal Poly State University (2007––2009)

Automated the intake and processing of campus-wide payroll documentation

**Assistant Manager, Library Depository/Retrieval Facility** — University of Nebraska (2006)

Archived thousands of books into high-density storage

## Projects

### [Samuel Colman: A Catalogue of the Artist’s Etchings](https://colmanetchings.com/)

The authoritative catalogue of etchings created by 19th-century American artist Samuel Colman. It includes a biography based on extensive primary source research.

Tags: Data, Storytelling, Art

### [The Diaries of James David Smillie](https://smilliediaries.com/)

AI-generated transcriptions of the personal diaries of American artist James David Smillie (1833–1909), spanning 1865–1909, along with a bespoke web application for browsing the complete archive.

Tags: Data, AI, Art

## Activity

GitHub: https://github.com/onyxfish

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© 2026 Christopher Groskopf · Oakland, CA

[chrisgroskopf.com](https://chrisgroskopf.com)